Relational Aggression: How does social adjustment impact the academic achievement of Special Education students?

As educators working with students in special education, many of us believe we hold the most power when it comes to influencing children's school experience. Modifications may be made to curricula, accommodations in the classroom may be added in an effort to support individual success, but as educators, are we in control of the way students view and treat classmates representing the special education community? The short answer, is no. The only control we ever really have is in regard to our ability to self-model, the content we choose to share, and the way we choose to handle confrontation in the classroom. Understanding the ways in which special education students are viewed and treated is essential when determining how to teach all students about the power and importance of social justice.

Through my data collection, I've found a great deal of information supporting the widely recognized idea that students with special needs are bullied more often than students without learning disabilities. As we move forward, teachers have attempted to employ multiple tactics to support the learning and emotional needs of all students, but with limited assistance offered, bullying towards special education students continued to occur. Creating a classroom community is the most widely publicized strategy in 2016, as we push our students to rely on each other and to recognize specific talents within their classmates. This type of inclusion, along with structured social emotional support and development, is seen to be one of the most effective ways to not only teach for social justice, but to create a an actual representation of what a just society looks like.

"With regard to social outcomes, it is consistently reported that integrated
children with SEN have lower status compared to their classmates" (Avramidis, 2009).

"Older over-arching and generally accepted theories suggest that increasing self-esteem in students will result in an increase of academic achievement which can lower negative behaviors" (Anderson, 2011).